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John Lennon's pep talk, America's first Beatlemaniac and other highlights from long-awaited film

According to McCartney, the group's longtime producer George Martin initially wanted the Beatles to cut songs he thought were likely to become hits and brought them a Tin Pan Alley tune called, "How Do You Do It?" The Beatles recorded the song, but it only received laughs after they played it for friends (McCartney even offers a hilarious pantomime of the jaunty cut).

"That's one of the magic moments of the Beatles," says Starr. "I remember that moment so vivid that thank God we stood up for ourselves. We just wanna do Lennon and McCartney songs. We actually looked him in the eye, which is very heavy for those days because he was the producer and we were the lads. He took a chance on us, he joined in."

Eight Days a Week premiered in September and is available on DVD and Blu-ray today, November 18th. The two-disc collector's edition features a slew of extras including featurettes on the Beatles' songwriting process and style, their early extra-musical influences and Liverpool in the Fifties and Sixties, as well as five rarely seen live performances.